15-year-old in title role of 'Matchgirl' ballet for fourth year

By Peter TonguetteFor The Columbus Dispatch

Thursday

Dec 14, 2017 at 5:00 AM

How old is the title character of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl”?

The classic story, which focuses on an impoverished youngster whose survival strategy involves selling matches, is famous for its heart-tugging premise, but it does not note the exact age of the character.

“I always think of this girl around the age of 11, 12,” said Columbus Dance Theatre Artistic Director Tim Veach, who choreographed a version of the tale in 2000. “That’s my guesstimation.”

For the ballet’s debut, Veach cast student dancers around that age, but in the years that followed, adult company dancers sometimes took over the part.

In 2014, however, Veach selected another student, Bexley resident Madeline Gosnell, to dance as the character at age 12.

“Maddie is an extremely gifted young dancer,” Veach said. “She has a young look about her, so it was a really wonderful opportunity to be able to have a younger dancer in the title role.”

For this year’s edition of “Matchgirl,” Madeline, now 15, will perform the part for the fourth consecutive year. The production, including a total of 85 professional and student dancers, will be performed Friday and Saturday in the Lincoln Theatre. The score of music by Aaron Copland and John Rutter will be played by an orchestra.

In the ballet’s early days, Veach began casting adults as the Match Girl — including, most recently, company member Jaime Kotrba, then in her late 20s — for practical reasons.

“It’s challenging to rehearse — given the way the choreography is set up — with someone who is not here all the time,” Veach said.

However, as the structure of the ballet was solidified, using students again become an option.

“Now that the ballet has settled into itself, it’s a little easier for us to develop a rehearsal situation where I can actually have a student in the role again,” he said. “I like having it be a younger dancer. I think it really brings a lot of resonance to the story.”

Madeline, a freshman at Bexley High School, is required to be onstage for the entire 90-minute ballet.

“It’s definitely a test of your endurance and stamina,” she said, “because you don’t get to leave the stage and get water or eat anything.”

Madeline, the daughter of Gage and Tamara Gosnell, began appearing in small roles in “Matchgirl” at age 4 but needed time to fully appreciate the story.

"In the first couple years I did it, I think ... what I struggled with the most was the emotions, not necessarily actually doing the steps,” Madeline said of the title role. “Now that I’m older and have done the part multiple times, I’m very comfortable with the role.”

“She is transported into the book,” Veach said. “It goes back and forth in Act I, between her being in the story and then her being in her cold, hard reality of now.”

Act II unfolds in an environment like paradise, where the Match Girl is met by the Heavenly Host (Seth Wilson). Other principal parts include the Match Girl’s deceased mother (Elena Keeny), her hard-hearted father (Gavin McNally) and her grandmother (Pat Wynn Brown).

“She gets to reconnect with her family — her mother and her grandmother — and her father comes back and apologizes for what he did to her, and the others who were not so kind to her also apologize,” Madeline said. “She gets to forgive them, and it kind of ends happy.”

Yet Veach said that the ballet is in tune with the sometimes-melancholy feeling of the holiday season.

“Every family gathers every year, and their families are changed,” he said. “Sometimes there’s a birth, and it’s a celebration, ... and sometimes it’s that there’s someone missing.”

Madeline, however, is not likely to be missing from future “Matchgirls”; the dancer, Veach said, could continue in the role.

“Maddie does it beautifully,” he said. “We’ll just see how life unfolds and see if she grows three inches next year or not.”

tonguetteauthor2@aol.com

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